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Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.

Oddly this line sup with something Harry Reid said back in October:

The problem here is obvious. Harry Reid is a partisan hack who's claims need to be taken with a giant grain of salt. At least that's how I saw it October; Partisan pushback for Comey's actions. In context of this article, however, it does look more like Comey put his thumb on the scales, to me.

Between this and Flynn, I figure we'll probably be seeing more of this in the future (I mean it's been hinted at for a while anyway) and I think it deserves it's own thread, even if I don't have much more to say right now.

Comey has a metric ****ton of dirt, but it's all inadmissible. Comey got it from intelligence sources, who care more about getting the information rather than getting it legally.

So, Comey knows exactly where to look, and is hopefully looking, but he's got to build an actual case, which he needs to hand off to a potentially hostile Justice Department. Cooler heads are playing it by the book.

This is opposed to the alleged hotheads, who are alleged to have threatened what amounts to mutiny.

Comey has a metric ****ton of dirt, but it's all inadmissible. Comey got it from intelligence sources, who care more about getting the information rather than getting it legally.

So, Comey knows exactly where to look, and is hopefully looking, but he's got to build an actual case, which he needs to hand off to a potentially hostile Justice Department. Cooler heads are playing it by the book.

This is opposed to the alleged hotheads, who are alleged to have threatened what amounts to mutiny.

Allegedly.

Counterpoint: He spoke about Weiners laptop possibly having emails, but couldn't be sure about that either.

Apart from anything to do with the current communications between Trump personnel and Russia I feel that much of Trumps stance towards Putin and Russia stem from him seeing them as essentially similar. He possibly feels that he understands Putin's psychology. (He may be wrong but he may feel he does).

Essentially Putin seems little difference between what is good for Russia and what is good for Putin. He freely annexes the machinery of the state to run his own life and dispenses favours to friends and allies. His geopolitical ambition for Russia is simply an expression of his own personal desires.

In this I think Trump is remarkably similar. His treatment of the Whitehouse press office and his casual descriptions of a "Winter Whitehouse" seem to be signs he shares this view that the US govt is really just the next step in the journey of Trump Inc. I think this aspect of his personality will come to dominate his behaviour in the coming years. Hopefully the machinery of the US stare is strong enough to either resist or wait out this subversion. The Russian state certainly wasn't. That said I certainly don't think Trump shares Putins ruthless pragmatism or his ability to have people removed at will from his world. I certainly DO think that Trump THINKS he's as "tough" as Putin.

This space for Hire! Reasonable rates. Reach an audience of literally dozens!

So certainly if the Russians were hacking Hillary, which led to private emails being published, giving Trump an edge in the election... Now the Russians are found to be friendly with Trump and his associates... Trump wants to end Obama's sanctions against them for fiddling in our election... Why oh why would someone end the sanctions? Doing the russians favors? More Pay for Play? Unless - they had planned it together, colluded to bypass the democratic process?

Before Chongo comes in there with his video of Obama saying the 80's called... I'm willing to bet Trump was bored that night in 2012, saw the Mitt/Obama debate, called up Putin, and said, "let's have fun. What are you doing in 2016? "

Does Trump think he can play everyone against each other? He's like that one arrogant douchebag who thinks he can screw over literally everyone and get away with it. Some want revenge, others just want him out of the way, question is, who will kill him first?

The liberals?
The Russians?
The Evangelicals?
The Intelligence Agencies?
The Jews?
Killary?
ISIS?
Ted Cruz' Wife?
The 1989 Denver Broncos?

Did I miss anyone?

I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....

It's an important semantic distinction because if asked to describe what hacking entails, the vast majority of people would describe something not even remotely resembling what happened.

Yes, but that's a misconception people have due to a lack of knowledge in this area — and true of many other professions. People are not aware that one of the greatest weaknesses are things like guessable passwords (“nobody will be able to guess that the password is my daughter's first name and the year she was born in”). And only in certain contexts could other security measures be established (there is a reason big hotels no longer allow customers to print from USB keys …), and in many cases that is exploiting good faith we have in other humans.

Originally Posted by subego

Something much closer than hacked would be conned. Russia conned passwords out of the DNC. This rates maybe 2 out of 5 pitchforks, and 1 out of 5 torches.

No, a hack is a hack. If you break into someone's home, it doesn't matter whether you had to shatter the door, pick the lock or use a key you surreptitiously copied. Nor should the victim of a burglary be graded on a scale, because it didn't have a deadbolt on the door or let him- or herself be conned into letting thieves make a copy of the key. You can say the DNC made it easy for the hackers, totally agreed, but you make it sound like “it wasn't as bad because they allowed themselves to be duped”.

In reference to the 1st post, Russia and other countries have always tried to "hack" and "influence" US elections, and the US does the same to them. Not a big deal. Just the democrats doing what democrats do best, finding a way to blame someone else for their own failures and lack of foresite. Im pretty sure Hillary had more foreign influence on her side than Trump.

I maintain most feel very different about that then they do about getting the door knocked down.

But that's just an artifact of people's misconceptions, and people's misconception is precisely why social engineering is such an effective tool at infiltrating networks. My parents use guessable passwords, my mom also at work, and she has access to sensitive information (she works in a hospital).

Often social engineering is the first step to entering a network. You can motivate people to download “protection software” when you are on streaming sites or browse porn. Or make them click on email links. In my brother's company last year, about 1,000 computers (~1/5th of all machines) were infected with ransomware, most likely because of some naughty email.

There are also other forms of hacking that people do not immediately think of. Remember the “cracked” Apple accounts of celebrities who had their private and intimate photos stolen? The attackers combined social engineering google-able information and information that could be obtained from other accounts (e. g. amazon and ebay) in order to successfully do a password reset. As far as I can tell US law does not distinguish how you obtained access.

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

The difference between a scam artist and a safe cracker.

I think this is not a bad way to think about it. Very often, though, criminals use a combination of both: perhaps you copied a key to a safety deposit box that contains the goodies you are interested in, but you still need to crack the door to the safe. In the end, though, the criminals took something that wasn't theirs.

The proposal, which included a peace plan for Ukraine and Russia, was delivered to Flynn by Michael Cohen, the president's personal lawyer, the report said. The sealed plans were reported to have had the support of Felix Sater, a business associate known to have aided Trump in previous dealings with Russia and Andrii Artemenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker.

Cohen, of course, is one of the purported four to have had contact with the Russians during the campaign.

But that's just an artifact of people's misconceptions, and people's misconception is precisely why social engineering is such an effective tool at infiltrating networks. My parents use guessable passwords, my mom also at work, and she has access to sensitive information (she works in a hospital).

Often social engineering is the first step to entering a network. You can motivate people to download “protection software” when you are on streaming sites or browse porn. Or make them click on email links. In my brother's company last year, about 1,000 computers (~1/5th of all machines) were infected with ransomware, most likely because of some naughty email.

There are also other forms of hacking that people do not immediately think of. Remember the “cracked” Apple accounts of celebrities who had their private and intimate photos stolen? The attackers combined social engineering google-able information and information that could be obtained from other accounts (e. g. amazon and ebay) in order to successfully do a password reset. As far as I can tell US law does not distinguish how you obtained access.

If not qualified, words with broad meanings have a "default" meaning.

The default meaning for "hacked" is an exploit used against a machine, not against a human. This distinction is important because of the investment in resources and knowledge needed to do the former is vastly different than what's needed for the latter.

Comey has a metric ****ton of dirt, but it's all inadmissible. Comey got it from intelligence sources, who care more about getting the information rather than getting it legally.

I don't think this is necessarily true: even as a staunch opponent of immoral and useless domestic mass surveillance, if the NSA was getting permission for spying on anyone, then it is the Russian ambassador. Leaking this info was a violation of the law, but not collecting it. As American law stands now, much of the mass data collection is legal if a foreign entity is concerned — which is by definition true here. In principle, this information could be made available during an investigation by a special prosecutor or one of the relevant committee's in Congress.

Even if the evidence was legally acquired, that doesn't mean it's admissible.

Admissible for what? It will certainly be admissible for a Congressional investigation (e. g. via a special subcommittee or a special prosecutor), and sensitive matters can be discussed in closed hearings.

Originally Posted by subego

Likewise, he may have information which can get admitted, but won't because it would reveal surveillance methods.

Members of the intelligence oversight committees, for instance, have wide-ranging clearance already, so also that isn't a problem.